


Lady in White

by Jonaira



Category: Original Work
Genre: Biblical Reinterpretation, Biblical Scripture References (Abrahamic Religions), Biblical Themes (Abrahamic Religions), F/M, Historical, Mystery, Romance, Science, Theology, Thriller, Tumblr Prompt, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27559864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jonaira/pseuds/Jonaira
Summary: Based on this prompt from tumblr user write-it-motherfuckers:Growing up, your parents were always very insistent that you never look behind you. The habit carried into adulthood, and soon you start to notice the way people always seem to freeze when they look behind you, growing nervous and often making excuses to leave. One day, after a particularly anxious person makes their excuses and hurries off, someone leans close to your ear and whispers lowly, “you know, one of these days you're going to have to actually look at me”
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Lady in White

My childhood was great.

It didn't start out that way, but things definitely worked out for me. Sure, the other kids thought I was strange- I liked asking _Why_? y'know. Why, _How, When, What, Who_. I loved science. It explained stuff. If you looked hard enough, it could be your best teacher. If you cared for it enough, it cared for you back.

_Edith_ , they'd say to me, _Why must you know all this, How is it relevant, When will you ever use it, What purpose does it serve, Who really cares ? Edith, don't you know, curiosity killed the cat ?_

And I'd want to scream in reply - Don't _you_ know, satisfaction brought it back ?

How convenient of them to leave out the part of that saying that didn't support the point they were trying to prove! Science wasn't like that- it was honest, sometimes brutally so. But it never clipped your wings before you could even try to fly. Science would tell you, that at the current speed the wind was blowing, you'd most likely end up a squishy splat on the ground, but it would also tell you, that a little to the south and a couple of degrees to the west, there would be a gentle air column rising over the sea that would get you exactly where you wanted to be. Uh, excuse me, got carried away there a bit.

The thing is, I don't know what came first- the Science or the Solitude, as I began to refer to it. 

Alright, so I was a lonely kid. Grown-ups were weird, I classified their reactions to me as anomalies, outliers. They'd get. I don't know, nervous around me. Transfixed almost, like I was a particularly large and complex puzzle. The other children would approach, play with me for a bit, but invariably be dragged away by their parents. Sure, they seemed a little more quiet around me, but hey, I was nervous around those kids too- isn't everyone when making new friends ?

Eitherway, nobody stuck around long enough for me to grow close to. So science filled the void.

My parents were great. They pretty much let me do whatever I wanted, rarely telling me I wasn't allowed to do something. If they always seemed a bit...jittery ? Jittery is the word - around me, I passed it off as just something all parents are, fearful for their kid's safety. They were working class, not too highly studied or particularly interested in asking why stuff happened the way it did. They were more content with knowing what would happen, and hoping that the same pattern would hold true and repeat. 

Pragmatic, right ?

It was fine; I had my Science for asking questions.

They were pretty religious too. Thaaat wasn't really my style. Believing in something or someone whose existence I couldn't see proof of ? Yeah, not happening.

But they would insist, with that same, jittery fearfulness, that the gods had some great and terrible destiny written out for me.

Did I mention they barely ever told me to not do something ? Well the one thing they did tell me not to do, forbid it even, was to look behind myself.

That single dictum never failed to drive me crazy. But why ? I'd ask, I'd beg them to tell me.

They promised it was both a curse and a blessing from the gods, and they'd refuse to say anymore, either for lack of knowledge or because whatever portent they'd encountered had freaked them out too much to talk about it with me, the subject of It.

I loved them, and they loved me. This simple fact of life I never doubted. But we didn't understand each other.

At all.

And yet, not everything that was true was always visible. Science agreed, that just because some phenomena couldn't be currently explained by standard modules of thinking and theories, didn't mean the phenomenon itself didn't exist.

Religion would call it Faith.

Me ? I just called it love. They never held me back otherwise; I decided that I would listen to them on this crazy notion just the once.

And then I found someone who who did understand. He understood everything. And so when I met the love of my life in my own backyard, on the hill behind my family's little house that would overlook the salt pans, I nearly pushed him off the summit when he popped up there one day out of nowhere.

It was my favourite spot to be alone in. For years, it had been just me and the sky that went on endlessly in the flat, glass-smooth surface of the shallow water. I used to pretend that I was floating, cradled somewhere in the arms of the sky, a soul in the blue.

I mean, I know he had to have come from somewhere, all arms and legs, gawky and coltish in his beat up old hand-me-downs. The guy wasn't as into science as I was, but he had a sharp logic and the sort of common sense that was, unfortunately, uncommon in people.

He indulged my passion. We'd spend hours and hours up there, talking, debating, arguing, laughing, (sometimes crying too) until we'd pull the blanket of stars over our heads and we'd both fall asleep in that pocket of sky that had become ours.

He was my best friend. And, he was honest. I asked him once, why was it that he didn't shy away from me like the other teens our age, their parents ? Was it just because he was a weirdo (like me) or was it something else ?

He shrugged. "You can call me crazy, but I'm quite sure I see the same thing that everyone sees behind you."

This was news to me. See something behind me ? Had everyone and their grandmother been smoking the same grass ?

He'd tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. "It's stars falling to earth and angels blowing thier trumpets," he told me.

"You know stars are actually big balls of gas that can't fall to earth right ?"

He'd flicked my ear. "Just go with it, Ado." That was his name for me, Ado. "What they see in the short instance they look behind you, it's powerful, and beautiful, and more terrifying than the sum of anything and everything they'll ever see in their entire lives."

"And what about you ? Doesn't it scare you ?"

He'd scratched his chin thoughtfully, stubble scraping. "Terrifying isn't necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I was terrified all those years ago when you tried to kick me off the hill-" he cut off laughing when I punched him. "But then if I'd let that fear allow me to keep rolling downhill and not come back up here and recite everything I knew about why rock bees dance, no pun intended, we'd have never become friends and I'd never get a chance to do this," he'd said and kissed me. (This wasn't new. We'd been a thing for a while now. That didn't stop rock bees from dancing in my stomach all over again though) 

"In fact," he'd continued, "this vision that surrounds you like an aura or a halo, I think it's a good thing. It's a promise, or a sign. I don't know. But seeing that it's something to do with you, it can't be all that bad," he smiled.

We're a few years older when he asks me to marry him, and I ask him what took him so long. He lifts me off my feet and we both go tumbling down the hill. We get married on the little hill behind my parents' house- our hill. We raise a house. In time, we raise a household too. We take our children out to watch the salt pans - I teach them science, he teaches them how to be good people. I point out the constellations, he points out the shooting stars they can see behind me, that I will never be witness to myself.

We're happy. 

***

Thirteen years. That's how long our peace lasts for before war swept the land, and plunged the people into insanity.

It was all we could do to rendezvous with my husband's uncle and hope for the best as refugees in the new city we moved to. The stench of the sulphur from vents on the outskirts of the town jaundiced the air and made me nauseous.

Science and Solitude became Strife and Survive. I yearned more and more everyday to be able to look behind me - my parents, now long dead, used to say that were I to look behind, it would be both a blessing and a curse.

Our lives torn apart by war was curse enough, wasn't it ? Would it not be merely a blessing now ?

But still, I resisted. Because what else could I do ? I watched, as my daughter's grew twisted in the mad lands we were stuck in. 

I watched, and for the first time in my life, I prayed. 

I prayed not to the gods of my parents or to the gods of the evil land we now lived in. But I prayed to the being who would wear the sky like gloves and cradle me in its arms as a child. The being at the top of my hill, now far far away.

That night, my prayers are answered.

"It's them," my husband tells me in wonder. "The angels from the vision,"

The town's people go wild. We nearly don't make it out of there alive, but the angels all but carry us out of there.

Hide in the mountains! They urge us. Find another hill and make it your own once more. 

This city will fall, and everyone in it.

And as we begin out flight across the rocky terrain, I stop because I now finally understand.

A blessing, and a curse.

My family will live in peace. The war will be over. A blessing. The town's of the plains will be purged. A curse upon them.

Angels and stars falling from the sky. Stars, like the flakes of sulphur that will rain down upon the city from the quarries and vents on the outskirts. 

It will come to pass only if I turn around.

I smile as I see Lot stop and look for me, wide-eyed as he sees the vision behind me become reality, arms outstretched to call me back to his side. It's the best last sight I could have hoped for.

I'm curious to see how this goes, I await the answers to all my questions.

I begin to turn.

I've got a feeling I'd be returning to the salt pans of my home and our hill afterall.

_Lot's Wife - an unnamed cautionary tale - don't be curious, don't look back, don't yearn for what was ? But there's so much more to her story than the Book tells us._


End file.
